7 of the Biggest Controlled Demolitions

There are plenty of ways buildings and infrastructure can get destroyed, from natural disasters to bombing. And while controlled demolition might have some smiliarites—like explosions and collapsing—it's a far different beast. It is, after all, controlled. That doesn't mean it's any less spectacular though. Here are seven of the largest things humans have blown up (carefully and on purpose), from stadiums to dams to skyscrapers.

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Kingdome, Seattle

One of the most famous Seattle buildings ever, the Kingdome, didn't have a long lifespan before it met its explosive fate. Built in 1976, the laboriously named King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium housed the Seahawks, Mariners and plenty of other events until closed in 2000, thanks in large part to its failing—and falling—roof tiles. The stadium's March 2000 implosion was the largest building ever demolished by implosion up to that time, with a volume of nearly 700,000 cubic feet.

K-25, Tennessee

Built as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943, the K-25 gaseous diffusion building at the East Tennessee Technology Park once stood as the world's largest building under one roof. In 2013, the Department of Energy finished a years-long demolition process that started in 2008, the largest the organization had ever undertaken. Unlike most demolished structures, however, K-25 lives on in the form of a three-story scale representation of the demolished building, which holds authentic equipment from the historic building.

AfE Tower, Germany

At 381 feet tall, the 1972-built AfE Tower became the tallest building to ever be demolished using explosives when it came down in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2014. The 50,000-ton skyscraper in the heart of the city attracted over 10,000 onlookers on explosion day, and a wall up to 20 feet high ran around the site to help stop any potential flying debris.

Zhuan-yang viaduct, China

Two miles worth of concrete blew up in unison in 2013. Built in 1997, the viaduct in the Chinese city of Wuhan needed a precision blast to end its 15-year life. Wires carrying 100,000 volts ran alongside the bridge and a gas pipeline underneath it to trigger explosives in sequence. In the end, the concrete all fell as planned, leaving room for crews to erect an even larger viaduct in its place.

J.L. Hudson Company, Detroit

The J.L. Hudson Company started in 1881 and by the early 1960s, its flagship downtown Detroit store took up an entire city block at 2.2 million square feet. The building was the tallest department store in the world at 26 stories, or 439 feet. But department stores aren't quite what they once were, and explosives brought down the structure in 1998—just ahead of the company itself going under. When felled, Hudson became the tallest building ever imploded and the largest single building imploded.

Glines Canyon Dam, Washington

At 210 feet tall, the Glines Canyon Dam on Washington's Elwha River was the largest dam demolition ever. Built in 1927 and removed for good in 2014, it took a combination of excavators chipping away at the top of the dam layer by layer and then some good old detonation. As crews reached the lower portion of the concrete structure, they sped up the removal process by bringing in explosives, using a series of blasts to finish off what was the Glines Canyon Dam.

Bow Valley Medical Center, Calgary

The Bow Valley Medical Center in Calgary, Alberta, may not have been the tallest set of buildings on this list, but it takes a lot of confidence to blow up 20 concrete structures simultaneously, bringing down an entire complex at once. Especially when that complex is in a residential neighborhood. At demolition time in 2007 the public turned up in big numbers to see this boom. It was delayed 20 minutes because of the crowd, including several hot air balloons that swept into the airspace over the center.

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